Longtime owner Anthony Antonelli.

56 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l FEBRUARY 2013 : TREASURE HIDDEN

A holdout in the jewelry business that’s still going strong, Wolf E. Myrow’s beads and baubles have inspired generations of artists and jewelry designers.

By Paul E. Kandarian I Photographs by Michael Cevoli

RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l FEBRUARY 2013 57 Anthony Antonelli doesn’t know how much inventory he has. But he knows exactly where all of it is. NeedA a little plastic Texas flag? He’ll find it. A tiny, pipe-smoking walrus? Not a problem. All manner of beads, baubles, buckles, bows and stones of every conceivable shape, color and size? Give him a minute, he’ll put his finger on whatever you need. Antonelli, his wife, Irene, and their two grown children, Tony and Robin, are the lifeblood of their company, Wolf E. Myrow, which for more than sixty years has been a huge presence in the jewelry-fitting industry, those little doodads that are the embryos of future bracelets, earrings, necklaces, artwork and everything in between. Ask what each does, they’ll smile and say, “whatever needs to be done.” Their business, known on the Internet as Closeout Jewelry Findings, is located in ancient buildings that once were Atlantic Mills on Providence’s Aleppo Street, a company that pro- cessed wool for Union soldier uniforms in the Civil War. All around are shelves crowded with well-worn boxes; attached to the outside of each is a sample of the contents within. In the massive warehouse just beyond are rooms of tall metal shelves heavy with boxes, manna from heaven for jewelry makers and artists who make their way here from around the world in search of goods and, more often than not, inspiration for what to create from them. How much stuff? “Someone once said that if everyone in China walked through here, they could give each of them a present,” Anthony Antonelli says. >>

This page: One of Myrow’s many hallways of boxed-up treasure. Facing page, top: A phone is surrounded by old photos of Atlantic Mills and Olneyville Square. Facing page, bottom: The exterior of the Providence company.

58 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l FEBRUARY 2013 “My grandfather would direct people as they came in. His greeting was always, ‘What do you want?’ ”

RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l FEBRUARY 2013 59 “I love that you never know what you’re going to ind.”

60 RHODE RHODE ISLAND ISLAND MONTHLYMONTHLY ll FEBRUARYOCTOBER 2011 2013 The company dates back to the 1940s, when Wolf E. Myrow started his jewelry-finding businessT out of the trunk of his car. “He’d go to different shops, look for excess merchandise, repackage what he bought and find a buyer for it,” says Antonelli, who at seventy-three has gray hair, a small moustache and a gentle face that looks much younger. “He was a go-between. He started in downtown Providence, on Washington Street, then moved here in the early ’70s. “He was a businessman, a smart business guy,” Antonelli says. By the mid-1960s, Myrow was busy and needed a partner, finding one in Mike Spagnole, Antonelli’s father-in-law. Together, they ran the company for about twenty years. Myrow died in 1980. Antonelli got involved thirty-three years ago, and later, so did his kids. “I worked here part time, on vacations through college,” says Tony Antonelli, forty-eight, of his stint at URI getting a teaching degree, which he found no demand for. “My grandfather said: ‘I’ll make you an offer. Come work for the fam- ily, you’ll have a job, business is booming, you won’t have to worry about security and I need the help. But you have to commit, not stay two or three years.’ I’ve been here ever since.” Robin did the same, working through college and never leaving the family business. “My grandfather would sit in a chair and direct people as they came in,” says Robin, forty-seven. “His greeting was always ‘What do you want?’ And I remember him saying to my father, ‘Stop buying,’ because he thought the inventory was getting too high. But it’s a good thing we did. No one could foresee China.” “That changed things tremendously,” | | CONTINUED ON PAGE 88

Facing page, top left: Longtime employee Carol helps keep tabs on the merchandise. Lower left: Tony Jr. at work. This page: The warehouse attracts an array of customers.

RHODERHODE ISLAND ISLAND MONTHLY MONTHLY l FEBRUARYl OCTOBER 20132011 61 Wolf E. Myrow | | CONTINUED FROM PAGE 61

Anthony Antonelli says of Rhode Island’s former status as the jewelry-making capital of the world. “The way we’re dealing with imports rather than local manufacturers. There are still some here, with the idea of making things with the ‘Made in USA’ label, but they’re most likely the higher-priced items.” Here at Wolf E. Myrow, people are look- ing for something different than everyone else has. And they’ll find it. The Antonellis buy in bulk, by the box, bag or bin. They’ll sort thousands of pounds of stuff into those smaller boxes that line the towering ware- Portraits of the house shelves. Goods start out in bigger original owners: boxes, and when sold off are put into small- Mike Spagnole in top picture; er ones, some just plain, some reflective of Wolf E. Myrow Rhode Island roots; old Blount Seafood in bottom. boxes serve as geographic evidence. “We look for deals, not trends,” Anthony pipe-smoking walrus is here, as are tiny old George Kirk says the Antonelli family Antonelli says. “When it’s popular stuff, you perfume bottles pasted to a wall near well- “has saved my ass, oh, I dunno, about 3,000 can’t get enough. When it’s not, it’s like it fell worn wooden stairs that dip in the middle times in the last thirty years.” off a cliff.” from more than a century’s worth of foot Kirk, of the Kirk siblings who own Kirk’s But no matter, what goes around comes traffic. Some items have prices: old wooden Folly in Providence, which according to around. Plain chains were huge, went cold, buttons that look like those on my long-de- its website creates “fantasy jewelry,” is and now for the last few years have gotten ceased grandfather’s coat go for fifteen cents. funny, blunt and upfront. His company hot again. Ditto plastic beads, he says. And If you need a price on anything, someone will sells big on the QVC home-shopping net- they’ve got it all. find it — or know it — quickly. work, he says, adding “when I can’t get “You can find it all under one roof,” says It’s not all as willy-nilly as it may appear. what I need, in my last-ditch efforts, I see son Tony. “Imported chain or rhinestones, Things are located by category, be they beads, Anthony with my hair on fire. Nine out of beads, plastics, you name it.” finished jewelry, glass stone or random baubles. ten times, he saves my ass.” Remember mood rings? Anthony An- Jewelry designers and makers and artists He calls the Antonellis “a great family, and tonelli shows me a dusty box, pulling one roam the aisles, all looking for just the right they all get along.” out and rubbing it with a thumb. There’s no thing. They come from all over — Europe, Kirk usually finds what he needs in the noticeable change, perhaps age contributing Canada, Japan, America — and locally. towering shelves and “if they don’t have it, to its loss of mystical, moody powers. Christine is one, looking very much the they’ll give me a lead on who does. In this Virtually none of it is valuable, at least bohemian artist, dressed in comfortable, ratty business, that’s rare. If someone doesn’t have individually, though they have a department attire. She declined to give her last name for what you need, they won’t tell you who does. upstairs where the more expensive stuff is, fear of being robbed, though none of what she Anthony does.” such as Swarovski crystal. Other than that, makes — largely earrings — have high theft Coral Bourgeois is a Pawtucket artist you want to make a haul here, you’ll need to value, she says. She lives in western Massachu- whose creations hang all over the world, and do it in volume. setts now, but started out in Rhode Island. locally in restaurants, hospitals and schools. “The earrings I make from material here “How much do I think of them?” she says. Walking through the darkly lit aisles of have paid my mortgage,” she says. “People “Well, I just made a piece called ‘Ode to Wolf the sprawling Myrow warehouse can be put down glass, but this is stuff that will Myrow,’ which will be in a one-woman show chillingly historic. Here are the occasional never be made again.” at Cade Tompkins Projects [in Providence] boxes marked “West Germany” and stuff That’s a huge part of the Myrow lure: a this spring.” from pre-war Japan. Customers are free to countless inventory of material, ideas and It’s not just the beautiful stones, she says, walk about and find what they may, bringing inspiration, much of it made long ago, never but also unusual findings that inspire her along a snack or juice or cup of coffee, pro- to be made again, that allows designers to creations “that are taken from parts of his- vided by the attentive Irene Antonelli, who’ll create one-of-a-kind, limited lines of goods tory: Persian designs, Italian florals, hand- happily make a fresh pot just for you. that greatly boosts their value. painted materials. I had lived in New York Here is a bunch of Egyptian-themed stuff, “This place is a gold mine,” she says. “It City and had a jewelry company and would scarabs and the like, plastic, cheap and allows you to come in and be creative with come here to get findings. When my kids plentiful. Over there, a box with a fuzzy ball what you see. And I never, ever leave emp- were little, I’d give them bags to pick up with plastic eyeballs attached to them. The ty-handed.” pieces they’d find on the floor.” >>

88 RHODE RHODE ISLAND ISLAND MONTHLYMONTHLY ll FEBRUARYOCTOBER 2011 2013 Myrow attracts jewelry designers from around the world.

The first time Yasmin Kuhn, a jewelry designer in Providence, went there, “I was blown away. It’s like a treasure chest for things you want to make, aisles and aisles of beads and things you need. I run into friends there, the family is terrific, and I love that you never know what you’re going to find. “The fun part is discovering something new,” she says. “What I find has definitely inspired my work. Sometimes I go for some- thing specific, sometimes not, but as a New England hoarder, if it’s not something I’ll use right away, I will in the future.” In Myrow’s dark basement hang “miles and miles of chains,” says Kuhn, a RISD film grad. “They should make a horror movie down there.” Alex and Ani owner and designer Carolyn Rafaelian doesn’t shop Myrow anymore, though she wishes she had time to. She has design teams that do it now, she says, as do jewelry makers from all over the world. “It’s iconic in the industry,” she says. “They have material there not in catalogues anymore. It’s great in that you walk in and can look, feel and touch it, and then walk out with it.” Anyone can, it’s open to all. Walk in, browse with a cup of Irene Antonelli’s cof- fee, and buy. There’s a $50 minimum, but Anthony Antonelli says, “it’s a liberal min- imum. Sometimes they don’t have $50 worth in the box.” Goods are weighed on digital scales (gone but not forgotten are the old clunky hand- operated machines that are still there), and out the door people go, as they have for more than sixty years, with their inspirations and creative visions in hand. “I have to say it’s the most unique place ever,” Kuhn says. “I’ve been to New York, where they have businesses like Myrow, but on a much smaller scale. There is no- where else on earth that could possibly have a place like this.” 

RHODERHODE ISLAND ISLAND MONTHLY MONTHLY l FEBRUARYl OCTOBER 20132011 89